Why the A’s could be a premium playoff team: Pitching and power go nicely in October

* Another column written while waiting for the A’s to either clinch or not-clinch tonight, all part of this mysterious and ancient method we call nuuzepaper journalism… Straight from tonight’s Merc website (UNEDITED VERSION)/

Whoever they play, wherever and whenever they play in the postseason, the A’s know two things:

They can pitch, and they can hit home runs.

First, of course, they have to get into the playoffs—and the A’s are still on the brink of that.

And in a perfect postseason world you would build a dangerous playoff team with other important elements. But if you could only pick two, those would be it.

Pitching to clamp down the opponents’ premiere hitters, especially smoke-throwing relievers for the late-innings.

And power hitting to create instant momentum against even the best pitching.

I don’t know how deep the A’s will go in these playoffs, but I know—and they know—that they are blessed with the specific talents to do quite well.

“You look at postseason teams,” power-hitter Brandon Moss said before Wednesday’s potential playoff-clincher against Texas at the Coliseum. “They’ve got great pitching, which we obviously have. We have a great bullpen.

“And we have the ability to change the score with one swing.

“Look at the Yankees, that’s what they do. You look at the Tigers, that’s what they do. You look at a lot of good postseason teams, that’s what they do.”

To be more recent and more specific, that’s the basic formula the St. Louis Cardinals (eight homers in their four World Series victories) used to win last year’s title.

It’s also exactly how the 2010 Giants did it—mixed with a major dollop of near-perfect defense, in their case.

The pitching keeps you in it, and the A’s are a top-10 staff from top to bottom, with great depth in their bullpen.

The power-hitters break it open, and the A’s have six players with 14 homers or more.

Entering play on Monday, the A’s were in the middle of a torrid HR tear, having blasted 110 of them since the All-Star break, most in the major leagues during that period.

“A lot of times you have to be able to beat good pitching with a home run,” Moss said. “They make one or two mistakes and you beat them that way. I feel like that’s what we’ve been able to do.

“We don’t manufacture a ton of runs on this team. I think everybody knows that. But we do hit home runs and I feel like a lot of good teams kind of live and die with that.”

Again, that’s how you play tight games against good teams, which has served the A’s well this season.

Lately, the A’s hitters have feasted on opponent bullpens, which isn’t a surprise.

“Starting pitchers have a plan and they’re going to execute it and bullpens usually have stuff,” Moss said. “But they’ll make mistakes with that stuff, sometimes.”

Entering Monday’s game, the A’s had a 44-41 record against teams still in the playoff race, with winning records against Baltimore, the Angels and Tampa Bay.

That’s a nice thing for them to know no matter who they play—whether it’s Baltimore in the Wild-Card game, Texas in a later round or the Yankees (5-5 in the season series) at any time.

So are the A’s set up to be a great playoff team?

“We’re just trying to get there first,” manager Bob Melvin said Monday afternoon. “We’ve felt like we’ve played pretty well against some of the teams that are in the postseason.

“But that’s a whole different dynamic. We’re just trying to get there first.”

They’re almost there, for the same reasons that they could be quite good once they’re playing playoff games: Pitching and power.

When is Dennis Allen or Mark Jackson going to start wearing an A’s cap to press conferences?

duffer

The A’s have also demonstrated that they can beat the best teams in MLB, beating the Yanks, Angels, Rangers, etc. consistantly.

That Man

Ohhhh yeahh! Bay Bridge World Series here we come!

sliver1935

If you live on the east coast as I, you might not even know there’s a terrific baseball team in Oakland. When was the last time Mike and Mike talked about the A’s other than occasionally giving the scores. The entire east coast media establishment just knows that Buck Showalter will win manager of the year, and perhaps Robin Ventura will get some votes. They do constantly rave about the “new” Mickey Mantle (Mike Trout) in L.A. While they never, but never mention the “new” Willie Mays (Cespedes) crushing balls and running wild in Oakland. MLB Network is finally beginning to notice the A’s at length. Prior to this month though, they practically never televised them nationwide. And Fox has never showed the A’s to the east coast fans. So, ask any rabid Yankee, Red Sox, Oriole, National fan about the Oakland A’s, and you’ll receive a sort of space out look, and the reply . . . Who?

duffer

The A’s lack of media coverage may be another reason for their success – other teams didn’t take them seriously and discovered the hard way that the A’s can play ball.